SAIC is champ of Fairfield Adult Softball League

FAIRFIELD TWP. - It has been said that old soldiers never die,
they just fade away. In that vein, it seems that in some cases, old
softball players never die… they just keep on playing. When Dave
Mercadante was a senior at James Caldwell High School in 1972 and
his acquaintance, Verona resident Robert Matthews, was a senior at
Seton Hall Prep, the two could never have imagined that, more than
30 years later, they would be playing competitive softball
together… and winning championships, to boot. For the third time in
10 years first baseman Matthews and pitcher Mercadante have keyed a
team to a title, with the company that they work for, Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of Madison Road,
winning the Fairfield Adult Summer Softball Leagues (FFASSL)
Tuesday-Thursday Division crown. Previous Crowns The teams
previous FFASSL crowns came in 1996 and 97, when the company was
called Procurenet. In this years regular season, SAIC went 7-2 and
finished in second place. In the Tuesday-Thursday playoffs
semifinals, SAIC faced NB Nights, a team with which they had split
two regular season meetings, winning 11-9 on June 22 and losing
13-5 on July 27. In the best-of-three series against NB Nights,
SAIC won the opener, 16-3, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, prior to losing game
two, 11-7, on Thursday, Aug. 3. Later that evening, in the third
and deciding game, SAIC prevailed, 14-9. Final Series That victory
set up a final series between SAIC and top-seeded Brainstorm, which
had topped SAIC, 12-3, in the regular season. In the playoffs
semifinals, Brainstorm swept two games from the fourth seed, Ricoh.
In the best-of-three finals opener double-header on Tuesday, Aug. 8
SAIC played flawless defense and won, 8-0, behind a two-hitter by
Mercadante. In the second game, the Brainstorm crew worked hard to
force a third and deciding game and took a 5-3 lead into the fifth
frame. In the bottom of the fifth, SAIC scored twice to tie the
tight tilt, but Brainstorm garnered a run in the top of the sixth
to take a 6-5 lead. SAIC, however, then tallied six times in the
bottom of the sixth stanza, en route to what ended up being an 11-6
title-taking rout. Brainstorm knocked us out of the playoffs last
year, so we were hoping to get a chance to do the same to them this
year. Sweet revenge! Matthews said. On The Team Joining Mercadante
and Matthews on the SAIC roster were outfielders Pete Pekoz, Rob
Carney, Pete Van Etten, Matt Redling, Chris Higgins, Anthony Lenzi
and Teddy Hume, infielders Will Sansevere, Joe Hubert, Rich
Higgins, Dave Winnicki, Randall Pela and Anthony Baldino, utility
man Steve Spadafino, DH Marriane McGuire and assistant coaches Jenn
Clark and Maureen Spadafino. Dave and I keep talking about finally
retiring and we keep talking about doing that someday. But, just
like in the John Fogerty song, Someday never comes, our Someday
never seems to. Each summer, the next softball season does come and
we end up on the team again. Matthews said with a laugh.

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